The Imperium uses a system to distinguish governments from each other. This system is called the UWP System. Government types in the UWP indicates the general type of authority. The Planetary Government tables describe characteristics of each government type by power structure or source.

State Polities

A State is an organized community living under a common leadership (government), organized on the basis of a subplanetary (...smaller than a world), planetary (world), or interstellar (multi-system) government. States are also referred to as polities. Most States have an organized government, which possesses executive, legislative, and judiciary power structures.

Sometimes called nations or nation-states.

Stateless Polities

A Stateless Society is a society that is not governed by a state. Stateless Societies have little to no centralization of authority. What positions of authority exist are generally extremely-limited in power and scope. Stateless Societies use widely-disparate economic and cultural organizational practices. Many Stateless Societies posses little in the way of executive, legislative, or judiciary power structures.

Government Powers

Minor Powers

Minor Power: A Minor Power, or Micro Power, is a state may or may not have achieved independence from other states in most aspects of governance. Some Minor States have little freedom of governance and, if strongly dominated by another state, they may be classifed as client states or vassal states.

Powers

Power: A (Standard) Power is a state that has achieved independence and experiences freedom from other states in most but not necessarily all aspects of governance.

Major Powers

Superpower: A Superpower or Hyperpower, also known as a Great Power or Macro Power, is one of a handful of states (polities) that dominate all other lesser states in their interstellar sphere.

Hyperpower: A Hyperpower is often used to indicate a state (polity) that dominates all other states in its interstellar sphere. It is a runaway power, dominating the system.

Sovereign vs. Non-sovereign States

States may additionally be Sovereign or Non-sovereign.

TBD

Topic

Remarks

X

TBD

X

TBD

Sovereign Polities

A Sovereign State is a state run by a Centralized Government that has sovereignty, or the ability to exert power over an astrographic area, sometimes as small as a single solar system and, at other times, as large as a multi-system or even multi-sector polity.

Sovereign Polity Qualities

Sovereign States most often share the following qualities:

Autonomous

Independent

Self-governing.

Sovereign Polity Terms

Sovereign States are often referred to as:

Great Powers

Hyperpowers

(Standard) Powers

Superpowers

Non-sovereign Polities

A Non-sovereign State is a state that has little to no sovereignty over an astrographic area.

Non-sovereign Polity Qualities

Non-sovereign States most often share the following qualities:

Non-autonomous (Subjugated)

Not independent (Subordinate or Subsidiary)

Not self-governing (Subservient)

Non-sovereign Polity Terms

Non-sovereign States are often referred to as:

Banana Republics

A client state

A colony

A dependent state

Minor Powers

An occupied state (Under military administration)

A puppet state

A subpolity

A vassal state

Government Power Structures

There are six primary power structure types, most commonly found amongst the governments of Charted Space:

Anarchy: Probably the ealriest government power structure is the far less common or lasting Anarchy.

Confederation: A Confederation is an interstellar political entity with a very loose relationship amongst a number of smaller political units. In some cases, a confederacy is little more than an alliance between independent states.

Empire: Empires differ from other states in that they have supreme control over other states. In the case of the Imperium, the Emperor retains the power to exert supreme control over his vassals, or the Imperial Nobility, in a system reminiscent of feudalism with some aspects of federalism.

Federation: A Federation, or Federal State, is an interstellar political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing states under a central (federal) interstellar government.

Hegemony: A Hegemony is an interstellar political entity that has established political, cultural, economic, or military predominance or control over other states.

Unitary State: A Unitary State is an interstellar political entity characterized by a higher degree of centralization than a Federation, but much less than a Hegemony or Empire. Most Unitary States have a high degree of separation of powers and guiding legal and governmental documents.

Please note that the Power Structures Table refers to bureacracy only in the sense of the effectiveness of control the bureaucracy has over the governed on a whole government level.

The bureaucracies of less-centralized states can be just as onerous as the bureaucracies or more centralized and effective states. Less-centralized bureaucracies tend to be less effective and easier to influence (...including graft and bribes).

The bureaucracies of more-centralized states tend to wield punishment and violence more often, incurring higher costs for those who break the rules. This doesn't necessarily make bribes or graft less common, but the higher opportunity costs of such actions does make the bureaucracies of more-centralized states more difficult to influence. No sophont administrator wants to take chance of losing their head (...or other vital appendage) over a petty bribe.

Standard Codes & Descriptions: The Imperium uses a standardized system of government codes referred to as the UWP (Universal World Profile) System. These codes are most useful when used to describe worlds presided over by members of Humaniti or sophonts with similar psychologies.

Government by an all-powerful minority which maintains absolute control through widespread coercion and oppression

(Supreme Oligarchy)

Empire

Code 7 Balkanization:
Balkanization is a special result which indicates that there is no world government; instead several rival territorial governments exist. In such cases, the specific qualities of each territory on the planet should be separately listed.

Code 6 Captive Government / Colony (Subordinate Government) & Codes (0, 1, 2 & 3):
Subordinate Government are non-sovereign (...or semi-sovereign) governments on other planets within a system. These governments are usually code 0,1,2,3 or 6.

Other Standards

In source information from other places and other eras of history, other government codes and types have been used.

Alien Governments

Certain non-human sophonts use governments that do not cleanly map to human standards. They can be likened to human governments, but differ in fine details important to them. These details are also often important to human travellers to these worlds, at least as much as the differences between human governments matter. The clearest difference is between the Hiver Supervised Anarchy (where the Hiver Federation observers are often effectively the people in charge, even if they act indirectly) and Unsupervised Anarchy (where this is not the case, instead being truly ruled by individual nests, with the result somewhere between codes 0 and 7 - between what a human world would term an anarchy or a balkanized government).

Vargr worlds do not use these government codes, as they have the same range of governments that humans have. It is also worth pointing out, to certain less educated Imperial travellers, that the Solomani Confederation and Zhodani Consulate do not have alien government codes because they are not alien: they are human, for all their cultural differences.

Government by the military (armed forces) as an interim survival measure or result of a "Coup".

Q

Interim Government

(Temporary Chaos)

Planetary (Small)

The world is ruled by a temporary government (...which may have been in power for some time).

S

Slave World

(Vassal State)

Planetary (Small)

The world’s government is ineffectual or non-existent (i.e. not sovereign). The populace survives by offering tribute or slaves to an outside power (often Vampire ships) which does not care to rule the world directly.

The world is run by malevolent "Viral Entities", ether openly or through a Quisling (manipulated) government.

Era: The New Era UWP Additions

Additional Codes were introduced for specific regions. The same code (N) is used in two different regions to represent two different government types. In at least one case (M), the regional code conflicts with the general government code: